Go ahead. Get a lactating goat and within a month, your refrigerator too will be chock full of mason jars with dates and labels. What to do with this endless bounty? Make cheese of course!
That period when your unemployed and budgets are tight is the perfect time to collect cheese making books, equipment, supplies, and the creme de la creme - sign up for a cheese making class! (Oh they made it look so easy). Heck, nothing will make you feel like a bigger loser than your first attempt at “30 Minute Mozzerella”!
Now, at this point, I should preface by explaining that I failed chemistry – twice. In fact, dating a chemist was the highest score I ever got in the subject. This should foreshadow the results of my first experiment in this age old craft. Yep! It was a pure disaster. Oh, I achieved a clean break, but alas, my curds would not stretch. They lounged in a big lump on my cutting board and then shifted from a warm mass to a hard, bouncy white glob of Goodyear! You could caulk windows with that stuff.
I searched for answers. I consulted trouble shooters.
“It was likely a problem with your P.H.”
Nice. Now, if I were a chemist, I would know precisely which step in the process concerned PH and how to make the proper adjustment. (Sheesh).
And so, I moved in another direction. I made Cajeta! (Caramel). This recipe merely involved reducing an over sweetened gallon of goat milk down to a sticky bronze mass. How could you screw that up? Turns out, ya can’t. The darker it gets, the more amazing the flavor. (Now, screwing up the pot, as I later learned, is another matter entirely). But the Cajeta it was a sweet success! In fact, it’s likely the most dangerous thing I’ve ever made. Ask any cardiologist.
Confidence re-boosted, I returned to mozzarella. I’m wiser now. I know the details those books don't mention. Things like, while the making of mozzarella might take only 30 mins, it takes over an HOUR for a double boiler to get to 155 degrees, or that you should prepare in advance for the lake of warm whey that will flood your counter, or that clean up will be an additional 45 mins. Best to make cheese while your partner is asleep!
The results of Experiment #2 was better - but no victory. I increased my acidity. I let my curds rest longer. But this time, the curds were stubborn. They lay in gummy crumbles on the bottom of the strainer with not the least bit of interest in becoming a solid mass that could be heat treated and stretched. Determined, I wadded them together into two balls and dipped them in hot water anyway, demanding that they behave.
If the first batch was like Goodyear, the second was like Silly Puddy – pliable and more friendly, but definitely providing ample chewing pleasure. Much of the curd made it to the chickens (again). I don’t want to think about the half life of those which slipped through the strainer and now reside in our septic system. I resent watching our goats pleasantly chewing their cud. It's their way of laughing at me, surely.
Will #3 be a charm? Don’t know. For now, I’ve repaired to my sofa with handfuls of Cajeta to salve my wounded ego and am pondering the fact that I have a goat which gives me ½ gallon of milk a day and I have no idea what to do with it.
Can hardly wait to try cheddar!
2 comments:
We'll have to talk about pH during T-day ... if pH is the issue. The milk has a pH of course, but so does tap water (only distilled is pH 7). Also, containers can be reactive. What kinds of containers are you incubating your goat milk/proto-cheese in?
So I'm new to goat milk but not to cheesemaking...hope I can help. My 30 minute mozzarella recipe calls for 1.5 tsp of citric acid dissolved in 1/4 cup cool water. Early on in goat lactation you need to cut that back to 1 tsp per gallon. Late in lactation use 2 tsp per gallon. Mid use the 1.5 tsp. If yours reads the same try that for attempt #3. My first batch stretched like crazy but wouldn't ball up and then I figured out the pH issue and adjusted and it worked fine. HTH
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